


Project: Crimson

by SirMcKenah



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, It's talked about, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Murder, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags are still being worked on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7926487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirMcKenah/pseuds/SirMcKenah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Peter Todd was only wanting to do his job. Morgan Oswald Kingsley just needed a home and figure out what the heck happened to him.<br/>This is their story... For better and for worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Project: Crimson

**Author's Note:**

> HERE WE GO! The start to it all! What I can say is that I really enjoy writing these two and I have since I was rather small, but coming up with a start has always been rather difficult for me... A few days ago, I thought to myself 'Why not just write something down?'  
> Well question that has bubbled in my mind, I will do that. I have done that. A little note; everything that I have done I have done myself. Thus far that is.  
> That means my ideas, my editing... Everything.  
> Writing this took many hours each day and it was a little tiring, yet I think I made something that I am proud of! I was wanting to jokingly write in the tags 'Cannon what Cannon?' but I thought that it was best not to do that since I was planning to add things 
> 
> Another thing! This is only the start of it all. This is the Prelude.

Overture

 23 45 to 8 11

 

 

If anyone were to look at Jason Todd from a fair distance away, they would more than likely say that he looked like an average man. He was a tall man, but aside from that he was average. He wore simple clothes that anyone would find at a thrift shop, he didn’t stand out in a crowd of people despite that height of his. To be perfectly honest; he liked not being the type of person who was often looked at for a prolonged amount of time. It worked for him, to be sort of well hidden. It made sense to him. 

 

However, anytime people whom passed him by or somehow got a good glance at him would say that he always looked down or even outraged by something. They would also notice that there was something that was off-putting about his eyes. They either gleamed a little too bright or they were just off altogether. Some have seen what dead eyes look and those who have seen those would know exactly where those eyes belonged.  It was something that would normally hit them like a ton of bricks or something a close to that. Oh, he noticed those lucky people because he was good at looking people in the eyes and he was a little bit paranoid since he always looked around if he felt like there was someone looking at him. He felt bad about those people who appeared like they knew. Though he would like to think his eyes looked a bit better than that. He at least thought that he eyes were not so off putting. Or he would like to think that his eyes were fine.  He’ll admit that he didn’t enjoy catching their glances because they would always pretend that he wasn’t there. They wouldn’t give him a nod, or ‘Hello’ or even a ‘How are you?’. 

 

It may have been better this way. At the end of the day, he liked it when he was alone. He enjoyed silence and he was perfectly fine talking to himself or the things around him as if they were his best of friends because they were. They didn’t judge him for anything he ever did and they would be there for him. He wasn’t too keen on humans. Everyone always acted like they’re better than everyone else and that they would do the right thing if given the chance, but he knew better. The truly good people barely show up, they often were inside due to the fear of the outside world because most people, most people were horrible. 

 

Yet here he was, feeling horrible about these thoughts. As much as he claimed he hated mankind, he cared. He felt a little ping when he saw children happy. He… He took joy helping people out. That did not change the fact that he still did not like most and he still had some serious trust issues. He could find a few likeable and actually enjoy being around. So few that he found himself to be alone almost all of time. For the most part, he thought that people were too loud, far too clingy and invasive and judgemental, but once in awhile he found someone who wasn’t like that. 

 

He would like to act like he hated people, and that he didn’t need anyone at all, but that would have been a lie. As a child, he needed people. He was just alone for most of it, he was alone almost all of his life. It just happened like that. It wasn’t his fault (it was totally his fault for pushing people away though). 

 

He remember that someone once said that some people were better off left alone. He was starting to honestly think that he was one of those people. Often he thought he should just be a normal guy and go out, talk to strangers (find himself someone pretty) and just be normal, and how much happier if he would just give himself a break… If he were just a normal person, he could maybe find something else- Something else worth- 

 

He enjoyed working too much even if it was a bit too much. At the moment, all he yearned for was to be able to get to his Safehouse without getting too distracted with life. He had a job to do and he thought he was taking too much time working on point A. That night he needed to make a 

 

In fact, he had spent nearly two weeks working on one case. 

 

He needed to go to that safe house and make arrangements in his head. He had to figure out the best date, the best time, the best location to take down one specific serial rapist that he’s had his eyes on for awhile now. Now, the man seemed to wipe his tracks clean a little too well and it was hard to really find any sort of evidence aside from stories from a few of the saviours, he was starting to wonder if this man was just some sort of urban legend…  

 

…Until he found one photo. Just one photo of the guy was enough to look into data bases and hopefully get him somewhere that evening. It was small… It made him angry that while this man was ruining lives, he was too busy playing Hide and Seek.

 

Luckily Red Hood was good at playing the game. All he needed to do… Was just… Get on Oracle's good side, which wasn’t going to be any sort of fun to do so but if he needed to at least have more of a lead on the man Oracle was definitely the easiest solution compared to doing all of it just on his own (the latter was more than likely going to be the outcome due to how things have been lately).  In anycase, he needed to be back there as soon as possible.

 

He had to because he’s been at this for far too long and he has been feeling like he’s been putting this off for too long. That was never something he wanted to do. He needed to take this scum right out of the streets, and then some. By himself. Okay, so maybe he needed to take Oracle out of the plan- It wasn’t going to do anyone harm. It would have actually been more harmful if--

 

He stopped himself in the middle of the street to look up at the sky. Gotham never showed the stars, or the sky for the matter, but every so often the moon would peek out from all of the smog. Usually he would feel all right seeing it. So it was unusual to him that it was daunting. It felt like it was making fun of him in a way. Or messaging him. God, he thought he was going crazy ‘cause why was he thinking these thoughts? This didn’t happe- Well, it happened often, he just wished it didn’t. 

 

When he was younger, his mind would often trail off for no reason. Sure, it could have been normal for most people, but he needed to concentrate on things for a long amount of time. It was confusing, he would go from sometimes being all over the place to often losing time working on a singular project. It was something he had to deal with since he was young and it was still something he had to deal with now.

 

(It was just another thing to hate himself for, wasn’t it?) 

 

Whatever, he had a job to do and the way he was going to start it was mute out the rest of the world around him. He brought the pace back onto his feet, feeling the evening’s cold air slap him across the face (how could he forget that autumn was sometimes so cruel?) and was making fine leigh way. He was feeling a little glad that barely anyone was out on the streets, and what made things even better was the fact that the people were out didn’t pay him any mind since they were too busy doing other things. 

 

Some of which were questionable to most. Still, what he did on a day to day basis would have raised a normal person’s (stiff, white collared man who lived a well structured life) brows high. Though who gave a shit in this side of Gotham. Not him. Never him.

 

Although he was someone who had a difficult time (every so often) paying attention to things, he was amazing at figuring out if someone was following him or looking at him for too long. Call it a ‘sixth sense’ or call it paranoia (it was more of paranoia), but he figured he was lucky. 

 

Figured.

 

So when this feeling kind of caught his attention, he looked behind his back to get a good look as to what was going on. He couldn’t see a creepy figure, or anyone at all. He looked all over, but only found a group of men from across the street. They seemed busy doing something, chatting up another… Guy? Okay, maybe it wasn’t his mind telling him that he was being followed, but saying that he needed to slow down and check this out and see how things would go. 

 

Jason Todd was a man of action, Red Hood was that just as much as he, but if a bunch of barely in high school boys wanted to mess around with another one of their own, who was he to stop them? Even when he was still in school, he didn’t loiter around with people. He didn’t ‘hang’ with people and even now he was someone who didn’t have many friends or people he liked being around with. It was normal for him to be that way. He would always claim that it was because he was too much of a hard worker, but… He was just… Not into people. It showed. It often showed how much he didn’t spend time around others even if when he wanted to. For as hardworking and smart as he is, he knows he fails in this aspect of life.  

 

So while watching these teenage boys talk to one of them, Jason wasn’t sure about what he was really looking at. Despite the fact that they seemed a little off, almost like they were making mocking comments, it didn’t look far from a normal conversation. In not only five seconds, it seemed like the group of men moved on and they walked away in the opposite from where he was planning to move. They seemed to have gotten louder while moving about their business, but he soon realised that the boy the group was chatting up stood in place. Was he shocked about something? It was too hard for Jason to see due to the street lamps on that street being utter shit. They flickered and it was horrible.

 

He’ll admit that he was shocked when the boy actually turned his head to face him, but it shouldn’t have. It was hard to see what his expression was, it seemed like he wanted to say something… Oh well. It wasn’t him that needed to know these things, so he walked away from all of that to get back to his usual business like he was supposed to. 

 

What he had to.

 

*

 

Some people were hard working, some were lazy and others just didn’t know what to do. Jason wasn’t sure where he would place himself for those sort of claims, he always thought that those things were left for others to tell him. He guess that he if he were to be forced into any ‘category’ he would say simply say he was a determined little fucker, and this guy was going to get down to business.

 

This safehouse compared to some of the others he’s had was a mess. He was in a hurry most of the time when he stopped. He was either working on cases or sleeping whenever he came in. He wasn’t sure if he was going to get any sleep that night because he had something to add on the drawing board.

 

Aside from only getting a photo of the guy Jason set his sights on, he also had stories. A little info here and there, and if he had anywhere to go with that he needed to be sure to know exactly what he was doing. One good way was writing it all down, pinning it up and then moving everything he wrote onto the computer just in case anything seriously bad happened to either. It made sense to him, even if it meant that he spent more time on that than sleeping, or reading or doing things that he would normally enjoy doing. It was his job, though he would rather be taking down more than one person and he wished that this one person wasn’t such a damn wuss in such a way of covering up his horrible messes, and even his personal things. 

 

He wouldn’t go so far to call him a coward, but frankly ‘wuss’ was just a slang term to use for it. Or to go all of the way back, the word would be use for a person who is abusive, therefore using it for either two words was goo- Was he actually thinking about this? Whatever. The man was a wuss, however Jason will give the man credit; whomever was on this guy’s side must have been intelligent and if he was working all by himself then holy shit. God he sounded like he was praising him…

 

That night he needed to do a bit of his homework. Mark down all of the victims and the saviours. Thankfully he was able to get photos of almost all of them, but some refused to have their pictures taken or to give it to him. That was fine, he didn’t need that for everyone. Another smart thing he did (he needed to thank himself for that later) was writing down what the saviours told him. That saved a lot of energy trying to remember everything that was told to him and making mistakes and mixing the claims up. 

 

That happened once and it was horrible. Around a year ago, there was a missing child’s case and he took it upon himself to help the family out (mainly he just wanted to make sure that the child was safe and the person who took him away would… Well, yeah), and while listening over everything that was needed to know he mixed a few things up and he went after the wrong man when it turned out to be a woman and she was the child’s nanny and she was actually trying to protect them from their abusive father. 

 

So. He was going to tie things together the best he could have and figure the connections out. The process was going to take some time because he was also going to need to rewrite everything on loose leaf paper because tearing pages out of journals was a pain in the ass. He was going to need something to drink… 

 

*

 

It seemed like it was an endless loop for him to figure everything out and to pinpoint things. He was getting tired before he was able to finish the his little ‘project’. He had one photo left, no more writing though, which was good because he hand had been getting painfully tired. He’s already drank several cups of water, coffee, tea- Anything that could keep him awake throughout this painful process of talking about death, sexual harassment and rape. For anyone who felt strongly about this topic, it was going to be difficult to even think about. To have to write it down three different times, having to think of the voices that told him these horrible things- It was something close to suffering. He couldn’t even think of how they could have gone through all of that and most still have jobs, have families to take care of and put on a brave face. 

 

It’s amazing seeing how brave people can be, yet it was understandable that people would break under this sort of pressure. He would have. Hell, he’s been broken before- That’s not something that was new though, it shouldn’t be something that he thought about often.  

 

Keeping in mind that this was the last photo, but not the last life that was taken by this man, he pinned it to his board and had one last look of it. The photo showed two young women sitting on the couch. They seemed like they were having a fun time talking to each other. The photo’s main focus (rightfully so) was on the woman with coppery coloured hair. It was long, somewhat curly and looked like it was often spent being tied up (in this photo, it was loose and flowing). To say the least, she was lovely to look at and the stories he heard of her made it seem like she was a good person. 

 

She was dead. Though the Forensic Pathologist records states that she died of vomiting he was sure that it might have been caused by head tamaura or lose of blood. Really, it could have been a number of things and the vomit was the literal nail on the coffin. All of these brutal facts of just one person and he wasn’t even in that far of detail.  

 

All of this was making him not only tired, it was also making him want to throw up over sympathy and crawl into a corner and never have to deal with this ever again. Maybe the world would have been better off if he were to have been just another shut-in, he couldn’t be though. He had to keep moving and get this guy. 

 

Maybe something else will pop up and his mind would think about anything that didn’t have to do with this. Regardless, it was time that he gave himself rest. If he didn’t he was going to fumble around and make a huge mistake (he could care less about making a fool of himself). 

 

  * Sleep
  * Food



He also needed to get some groceries. Stuff like eggs, milk and toiletries. Being able to do these small three tasks and he would call Jason Todd’s day well spent. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHA  
> Writing is so much fun, everyone should try it out, I would highly recommend it. Any who, I hope you all enjoy what I wrote because I took some time writing all of this. I hope that by doing this, I can only get better at writing! I was thinking that I will take my time with each chapter (meaning that I will update once or twice a month, maybe write some shorts of my mini stories), but if I update a chapter once a week that would be pretty rad! :)  
> I was thinking of working on playlists too, since I love listening to music while I work.
> 
> EDIT: Oh my gosh, something horrible happened and AHHHHHH so I had to re-do everything!!


End file.
